UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

Chapter 7Piot commented that when he suggested that spending money wisely in development isnot always easy, “immediately an email circulated accusing me of being ‘a puppet of thedonors’”.191Indeed, as people reflected on the meeting, memories of the early days of the organizationsurfaced. Piot said that it provided a good example of how the slightest mistake by theSecretariat could be amplified and exploited. It also revealed how a technical issue – estimatingresource needs for AIDS – “is eminently political, and a calm debate is very difficult, ifnot impossible, because there is a lack of trust amont he various stakeholders”. An importantrole for the UNAIDS Secretariat is, and always has been, creating and maintaining this trust: itis vital, if effective work is to be achieved.A technical issue– estimating resourceneeds for AIDS –“is eminently political,and a calm debate isvery difficult, if notimpossible, becausethere is no trustamong the variousstakeholders”.However, despite the bitter clashes before and during the meeting, a key outcome was established– the Global Task Team on Improving Coordination among Multilateral Institutionsand International Donors. The Global Task Team, co-chaired by Sidibe and the SwedishAIDS Ambassador, Lennarth Hjelmaker, was composed of senior representatives from 24low-income and developed countries, civil society groups, regional bodies, the Global Fundand UN organizations. In addition to the establishment of the Global Task Team, the Londonmeeting tasked the UNAIDS Secretariat in collaboration with relevant partners to refine themethods for estimating resource needs on AIDS.Facilitated by the UNAIDS Secretariat and with representatives from all stakeholders, thenew team was asked to develop a set of recommendations on improving the institutionalarchitecture of the response to the epidemic.Sidibe explained: “The purpose of the London meeting was to rethink the architecture ofthe response at the country level, and the Global Task Team has been instrumental in this. Itwas a major task [in the 80 days’ time-frame given to them] to look at what was not working,why it was not working and how we could make sure that the recommendations would helpto implement the principles of the ‘Three Ones’ effectively”.The Global Task Team speedily developed recommendations presented to UNAIDS’ PCBin June 2005 14 . The main aim of all these meetings was to ensure that as many people livingwith HIV as possible received treatment and support as well as providing nationwide preventionprogrammes, so there was a real urgency behind the process.Piot believes that the Global Task Team recommendations are probably the most advancedagreements on multilateral reform. For many years, various working groups, governingboards and suchlike – both within the UN and among development organizations generally– have talked about coordination and division of labour. But, said Piot: “… many of the14For the full Global Task Team recommendations, see http://data.unaids.org/Publications/IRC-pub06/JC1125-GlobalTaskTeamReport –en.pdf.